Unjournalism

As a guy who spends a fair amount of time helping clients create content that is optimized to show up as high as possible in search-engine results pages, the New York Times’ recent report on J.C. Penney and its astonishingly high search rankings was quite interesting. As a guy who spends also spends a fair amount of time on media relations and pitching stories for clients, I found a small detail in the report that stood out far more than any other.

The report on JCP’s search-engine optimization efforts includes the following bit as part of an examination of how those SEO efforts might have contributed to the retailer’s booming holiday-season sales:

Exactly how many of those visits translate into sales, and the size of each sale, only Penney would know.

But in January, the company was crowing about its online holiday sales. Kate Coultas, a company spokeswoman, wrote to a reporter in January, “Internet sales through jcp.com posted strong growth in December, with significant increases in traffic and orders for the key holiday shopping periods of the week after Thanksgiving and the week before Christmas.”

The emphasis there is mine. Here’s how I read that: That line from the spokeswoman — especially considering the way it’s introduced in this article — feels like something that was written in a pitch to a reporter. Probably a pitch to a marketing or advertising reporter in which the spokeswoman was hoping to get a little ink (who are we kidding — I’m sure her boss asked for the front page and a segment on Oprah) about her company’s great holiday sales figures.

In this case, the quote this reporter yoinked from that pitch letter included nothing embarrassing for the spokeswoman. It was just used in a less than ideal context. But reading it in this report makes me recall some things I’ve put in pitches that I hope never show up in the Times. Nothing really bad — just stuff that would be awkward or less than ideal if it showed up in public. Sometimes you write those pitches as though you’re having just having a casual conversation — but you have to remember you’re having that conversation with a reporter.

I’m sure anyone who’s spent time working on media relations programs has had a reporter or a blogger publish a bit of information you never really thought you’d see published — or reprint an entire pitch e-mail because it’s quicker and easier than writing an original article. It happens, but it doesn’t happen often enough to stay on top of your mind with each new pitch you write.

But it needs to stay on top of your mind. You need to watch what you write. Don’t put it in the e-mail unless you’d be comfortable seeing it in the paper.

Tags: search // 1 Comment »

It’s December. Time of year when snow covers the ground of any state worth living in and “Best [Noun] of [Year]” lists are published with reckless abandon.

I plan to contribute to the onslaught in a couple of weeks, revisiting last year’s best music round-up with an update for 2010. But that’s fun, see, because it’s about something cool. Music. Everybody loves music — except terrorists. You’re not a terrorist, are you?

Closer to the world of marketing and digital communication, we can certainly expect to see an almost criminal amount of predictable, occasionally interesting lists from all corners of the business. Sometimes these articles deliver on the intrigue presented in the headline, but often they disappoint like the Vikings in, well, any month during football season.

Primarily as an exercise in personal amusement, I thought it’d be fun to predict some of the list items we’ll see from marketing, advertising and PR bloggers around the world in the coming weeks. So without further ado (I’m certain countless other bloggers will use that phrase to transition from their introductions to their lists), here’s my list of the 10 most common list items we’re going to see in the coming weeks.

Top 5 things you’ll see on marketing and digital communication lists about the year that was:

• Old Spice: Yeah, we get it. The Old Spice campaign kicked ass and Isiah Mustafa is handsome. Thanks for reminding us, list compilers of the world!
• Content marketing: Fast Horse hired a director of content marketing this year, and we’re not the only ones talking about this stuff. Let’s hope we’re not the only ones walking the walk, too!
• Mobile marketing: Every year, it’s “the story of the year,” which means two things: It’s a big deal, and it’s never as big a deal as proponents expected. This year, “mobile” and “location-based marketing” (using Foursquare and the like) nearly became one and the same, whether they like it or not.
• WikiLeaks: Julian Assange is a terrorist! He’s a hero! This is an example of technology’s democratizing impact! It’s an example of digital power run amok! He’s a perfect example of the importance of the First Amendment! What if he leaks your company’s internal memos? Five PR lessons you can learn from WikiLeaks… And so on. We’ve only just begun.
• Privacy: Facebook is constantly pounded for actually or alleged privacy concerns. Just yesterday, the world woke up to hundreds of thousands of leaked passwords thanks to Gawker’s security problems. As we continued the migrating to increasingly digital lives, talk of privacy was everywhere.

Top 5 things you’ll on marketing trends lists looking ahead to 2011:

• Content marketing: It’s for real, and you’ll probably get sick of hearing the phrase soon.
• Mobile marketing: Expect to read something to this effect often: “We put this on our list last year, but really, it’s going to take off this year! Have you heard about QR codes?!”
• The life and death of e-mail: Depending on who you ask, we’re either going to finally see new forms of communication kill e-mail (not likely) or see an increase in smarter, more strategic e-mail marketing (bet on it). Reports of e-mail’s death are greatly exaggerated.
• Privacy: Are you starting to get the point yet? The big stories of 2010 largely will be the big stories of 2011. That’s because they’re big. What are you doing to protect your privacy online? How about that of your customers?
• Acquisition rumors: People will try to predict who’ll purchase major digital players. I’m sure we’ll hear about why Google should buy Facebook, how Apple could benefit from owning Twitter, and whether it’d be unwise for Gawker to buy Groupon. And even if they’re accurate, these breathless posts of speculation will get old fast.

Of course, I’m just having fun here, but I’m sure a few of these guesses are accurate. What other trends do you expect we’ll hear a ton of at these year-end list posts start to fly?

Tags: trends // Add Comment »

Google shared a thoughtful, level-headed response to the New York Times’ fascinating story on DecorMyEyes, the online retailer that seems to find a business benefit in treating customers like dirt.

The focus of the NYT story was the retailer’s assertion that negative reviews and commentary on the Web greatly improve the retailer’s search ranking and site traffic — and are a hell of a lot easier to come by than glowing reviews. But a response from Get Satisfaction, the customer-service website mentioned in the NYT piece, casts doubt on the evil retailer’s claims.

Further, Google (heard of it?) offered a detailed explanation of the simple steps it could have taken to address schemes by evil retailers like DecorMyEyes as well as the more reasonable steps it did take.

If those two responses don’t restore at least some of your faith in the Web’s defenses against weasels like the guy who runs DecorMyEyes, perhaps you’re too cynical for your own good.

Tags: search // Add Comment »

The digital marketing world experienced a collective jaw-dropping moment when the Wall Street Journal — and many major blogs and all sorts of re-reporters, retweeters and the like — reported that Twitter’s Promoted Tweets advertising option was being sold to advertisers for “upwards of $100,000.” [...]

If an advertiser is paying “upwards of $100,000″ with this approach, he or she is getting an outrageous amount of exposure. In my experimenting with Promoted Tweets on behalf of a client, I can safely say we couldn’t even find ways to spend $100,000 at this point. We’re seeing tremendous returns — loads of impressions and clicks, and a far higher engagement rate than most Web ads — but there’s neither enough competition (the program is only open to select brands) nor search traffic to rack up costs that quickly. [...]

Twitter has been rather tight-lipped about its advertising options, especially the costs associated with using them. The company seems to only discuss those matters with the digital marketers within the brands who’ve been lucky enough to experiment with the program in its early stages. But by not weighing in to clarify this matter (please, correct me if I’m missing something), Twitter is potentially turning off future advertisers who will write off these promotional opportunities as too little bang for too much buck.

Read the rest of this article as it was originally published on the Fast Horse blog, Idea Peepshow.

Tags: advertising // Add Comment »

A year and a half ago, we at Fast Horse set out to create a Facebook page for the agency — to put our flag in the ground within this massive and still-growing social networking site. But we wanted it to have a purpose, a specific reason for being — which is more than can be said for many organizations’ Facebook pages.

It seemed natural for us to use Facebook as a place to build a community of budding marketing professionals and to offer them a resource that would help them in the early stages of their career. We created the Fast Horse Experience as a place for college students and recent grads (and, of course, other folks are welcome) to gather, to learn about the industry and our agency, and to learn some things that might help them land their first or next job — whether at Fast Horse or at another shop across town or across the country.

During the past 18 months, we’ve learned a lot about the folks who are just starting out in this profession, and they’ve had a chance to learn a lot about us. We’ve hired several people from within this community, of which more than 1,800 people are now members. We’ve created a place to learn, to share, to connect and to have fun. Isn’t that what all of this social media stuff is about, anyway?

Every single one of us at Fast Horse has played a significant role in making our Facebook community what it is, but it’d be nothing without those 1,800 friends. I want to thank all of those people because, today, I find myself beaming with pride for what we’ve collectively built. All the work we’ve put into building this community received a great bit of validation from none other than Mashable, one of the most popular blogs on the Web and, surely, one of the social media world’s biggest tastemakers. Mashable writes:

When Fast Horse launched its Facebook Page, it didn’t want the campaign to just be a megaphone for the work they were doing, but rather they wanted to use it as a place to interact with job candidates, sort of a digital informational interview, says [creative director and founder Jorg] Pierach. The company directs job seekers to its Facebook Page so its employees have a place to share information about the company, their culture and what they do.

“So instead of a resume disappearing into a file somewhere, we have a way to keep in touch, and the Fast Horse experience is the way to do that,” he said. “We started this about a year and half ago and we’ve hired about four or five people this way. They started a dialogue, and when a position opened up we already had a good idea of what that [person] was about.”

Yes, I’m bragging. But I’m pretty sure we’ve earned the chance to do a little bit of that. Do you have a great example of community building efforts paying off? I’d love to hear about it.

Tags: community // Add Comment »

I’m sick of hearing about how awesomely funny the videos starring the “Old Spice guy” are, and I really don’t need to hear an update on how many bajillions of times people watch the 200-some YouTube videos. They’re very funny and clever and, apparently, effective. I get it. (If your power has been out and you have no idea what I’m talking about, BusinessWeek has a good summary of this wildly popular campaign.)

You know what I’m not sick of? Discussion of why this campaign was such a home run. I haven’t heard much along these lines, even after actually seeking it out. So here’s my attempt at filling the void.

Why did the live-response “Old Spice guy” video campaign work so damn well?

Read the rest of this article as it was originally published on the Fast Horse blog, Idea Peepshow.

Tags: marketing, social media // Add Comment »

In April, Facebook launched of a set of “social plug-ins” that let anyone put tools Facebook’s comment box and “Like” button on websites outside of Facebook. Just three weeks after these social plug-in tools were launched, more than 100,000 sites had installed the tools.

It was huge news in the worlds of technology and marketing. Not because it was the next big step for the social-networking giant. Not because it presented potentially huge privacy concerns for users of the service that has previously danced all over both sides of the line that separates respect for privacy from abusing users’ trust. And not because it gave geeks and marketers fun new toys to tinker with.

It was huge because it marked what was arguably the biggest stride to date toward what Charlene Li, a social media marketing analyst formerly with Forrester Research, described as a future in which online “social networks will be like air.” That is, the people and entities we’re connected to online and the things they share will surround us and be taken for granted — like air. Their presence will be the norm, not the exception. And if you think our social networks aren’t as crucial to our survival as air, ask the nearest psychology major about Maslow’s hierarchy.

Read the rest of this article as it was originally published on the Fast Horse blog, Idea Peepshow.

Tags: social media // Add Comment »

Well, maybe that’s not true, but she was onto something: Remember when your mom told you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?” Same idea applies to hosting comment discussions on news sites.

Have you ever noticed the relatively low quality of the comments readers leave on stories on your daily newspaper’s Web site — or on a hugely popular site like YouTube? They’re usually just this side of worthless, and, in the case of YouTube, they’re often some of the most mindless, meaningless drivel you’ve ever wasted eye power on.

In the case of news sites, Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review blames the reporters themselves and their publishers, not the commenters who often can’t seem to string together anything more coherent than four pre-written partisan talking points glued together by a few hard-working conjunctions. He makes I point I’d tend to agree with: If you, the news organization, can’t manage a comment discussion, don’t bother having one. Just shut if off.

Not only that, but when it comes to doing the work of managing that discussion, it’s not a task to be left to an “online editor” or someone who simply deletes any comment that drops an F-bomb (keep an eye on our recent vice presidents). The person best suited to manage the discussion, to keep the discussion meaningfully on track, to even learn from that discussion, is the writer of the story.

Niles is onto something here. Read his piece for a taste of what online news could be like, and imagine your favorite local reporter really being a part of the crowd — which I’ve written about when discussing Minneapolis’ own Jason DeRusha. But note that Niles isn’t being weighed down by technical minutiae:

Notice that I’ve written nothing about anonymous comments. Or whether comments should be held for review before publication. That’s not because I don’t care about those issues, or don’t have an opinion. I do. But I’ve also found that an individual publication’s stand on those issues doesn’t determine whether it manages its comment community successfully or not. I’ve seen great discussions with and without anonymous posters. As well as lousy ones. I’ve seen great conversations both with and without prior review. And lousy ones, too.

Same goes for blogs. I’ve watched many great blogs get too big too quick, and the comment discussions devolve into nothingness. It’s hard work to keep a discussion interesting when you start to get several dozen comments deep. But don’t shy away from the work. “[O]n newspaper websites, when the article goes up, that’s the end of the production process,” Niles wrote, “On community-focused websites, when the article goes up, that’s the beginning.”

Tags: journalism, social media // 1 Comment »

Wow. Has it really been…? Geez.

With the beginning of the new year (I know it’s February already; shut up), I’m taking some time at work to set some goals for the year ahead. Some goals that pertain specifically to “personal marketing” and others, arguably more interesting or more important, that pertain to how I hope to better myself and the agency in the coming the months. These are goals that I will create and assign to myself, not goals that are put upon me — though my colleagues can and will shape them.

It’s a bit daunting to start with a blank sheet of paper — or a blank Word document, as it were — tasked with pulling meaningful goals out of the ether and, after some polishing, committing to them. I like it, though. I find that I’m now putting to paper things I’ve been meaning to do, wanting to do, hoping to do for some time. Now I have a reason.

The list is still in the works, but as it stands, there are some of the thing I’m thinking about:

• Taking all things “social media” to the next level. Many clients will still need the fundamental strategies and services we’ve always delivered, but I’m always looking toward what’s next, what’s beyond the basic.
• Finding new ways or new platforms — online and off — to help my team share ideas, brainstorm, document best practices, relay personal and professional news, show off their success stories, and so on. Is there an organization on earth that couldn’t stand to do these things better?
• Make more meaningful connections. My online activity enables my offline relationships and vice versa. I need to find more rocket fuel to pour on both of those fires. Make ‘em go boom.
• Use the snooze button less. This isn’t some sort of marketing metaphor; I really need to just get the hell out of bed in the morning.

How about you? What do you want to accomplish this year?

[photo]

Tags: planning // Add Comment »

A recent episode of the For Immediate Release podcast — I believe it was show 486 — included a discussion about worms on Twitter and the connection with the (in)security of shortened URLs shared online. As FIR co-host Shel Holtz alluded to, even if you trust the sender or sharer of a shortened URL, those links — which mask the destination with a simpler, shorter tinyurl.com or bit.ly address — are fraught with danger. Or, at least, potential danger.

This is something I’ve discussed more than once with my friend and local code wizard Garrick Van Buren. He’s built his own URL shortener, grv.me, that he uses to share stuff he creates. He’s done the same for MinnPost.com with its minnpo.st URL shortener, which the local news outfit uses to share its own stories on Twitter and the like.

Why? Trust. When you see a TinyURL, you have no idea what the link is going to point you to. Viruses, spyware, porn and all sorts of other unwanted or inappropriate stuff are just a click away. Sure, there are some tricks to help alleviate that problem, but what if you actually could trust a shortened URL?

That’s there grv.me and minnpo.st come in. Once you’re familiar with them — once their respective publishers introduce you to them — you can trust them as much as you trust their publishers. Because you know only Garrick can create grv.me URLs, there’s no virus at the other end. Coke, a client of ours, also created its own URL shortener — with trust being one factor and, I’m sure, the desire to control the technology rather than rely on someone else’s as another factor. (though we had nothing to do with the creation of this tool).

The need for safety and security online will not go away. Don’t worry: Smart people like Garrick will be here to help.

Photo courtesy of zach_manchester on Flickr

Tags: security, Web // 8 Comments »